Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs



I took my niece to see this film a few weeks ago -- then went back to see it in 3-D a week later.  It was surprisingly fantastic.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is loosely based on a kid's book with the same name.  My understanding is that the movie is nothing like the book.  However, this is one of the few cases where that fact is irrelevant.  The movie's visuals are amazing and the jokes are quite hilarious, if one can put aside his/her biases to simply enjoy an entertaining movie. 

The film begins with young inventor/protagonist Flint Lockwood being encouraged by his mother after a day spent getting ribbed at school.  A fast-forward to the present day shows an adult Flint with few social skills, an underground lab on his family's property, his mother having passed away years ago, and his dad encouraging him to work at the family bait and tackle store.  But Flint has a surprise for the whole world: a machine that converts water into food. 

The gags are almost non-stop, and many of them -- both visual and auditory -- are written at an adult level.  I found myself laughing far more often than the kids at the theater were.   On top of it all, Mr. T plays an unforgettably funny key role in the story.

It's difficult for me to recommend a movie more highly than this one.  Go see it, bring the kids/nieces, nephews/cousins along -- hell, go see it with grownups.  You won't be disappointed. 

Oh, trust me -- the Redskins have been bad before.  But as a fan growing up here in the 80s, you knew it was only a matter of time before Jack Kent Cooke, Bobby Beathard and Joe Gibbs would lift the team back into the NFL's elite.  I've been watching the Redskins for as long as I have memories.  One of my favorite toys as a kid was a white plastic Redskins football.  When the team won its last Super Bowl in 1992, I kept a commemorative coke can for years afterward. 

Then Gibbs retired, JKC died, Snyder bought the team at auction...and that was the end of the Redskins' relevance in the NFL. 

Since Snyder bought the team and hired Vinny Cerrato to be his yes-man 10 years ago, the Redskins have ranged from yawningly mediocre to downright bad.   And that's just their performance on the field.  [Actually, calling Cerrato Snyder's yes-man is a compliment to Cerrato.  It absolves him of some responsibility for the completely moronic personnel and coaching decisions made by Redskins management over the past 10 years.]

Not even the return of Joe Gibbs could stop Snyder running the team into the ground.  Gibbs managed to make the playoffs 2 out of the 3 years he came back.  Apparently he did it with bailing wire and Scotch Tape, because the team imploded half a season after he retired again.  From 6-2 during the first half of Zorn's tenure to 2-5 now, the team is total garbage almost from top to bottom thanks to horrible management and personnel decisions. 

Don't get me wrong: from a business perspective, the team is doing just fine.  Snyder has applied his marketing savvy and made the Redskins the most profitable team in the NFL.  He has done a fantastic job exploiting a loyal, die-hard fanbase to line his own pockets.  He has also alienated many of those same fans by ruining the game-day stadium experience with overzealous security, firing longtime staffers for no apparent reason, overcharging for concessions, and the like. 

The team can't hire a GM or a coach with any reputation or credibility, because top candidates don't want to work for Snyder.  After Gibbs re-retired, the team hired an offensive coordinator before hiring a head coach.  They then ended up promoting the guy they hired to run the offense, making him the head coach instead.

But this season takes the cake.  Not only is the team cover-your-eyes awful -- they aren't even fun to watch.  They have lost to some of the worst teams in recent NFL history this season, and at 2-5 have little hope of winning any of their remaining games.  Many players appear to be doing their own thing, and seem to have shown up just to collect one of Snyder's too-high paychecks.  This season, the first hired an 'offensive consultant' who has been retired from football for 5 years and was a bingo-caller and volunteer.  They pushed this onto a coaching staff that didn't want it.  Then the team team forced their head coach (Jim Zorn, a nice guy who's in waaaaaaay over his head) to give up play-calling duties to the consultant they hired the week before.  It was obvious these changes were forced on Zorn and his staff.  Only a few days ago, Cerrato announced that Zorn would be the coach through the end of the season thought speculation was flying that Snyder had courted replacements already.  

To make matters worse, team management has decided to stifle all outward signs of fan discontent.  A brand new policy bans ALL (instead of only some) homemade signs from being brought into the stadium by fans.  The team claims this is to protect fans from obscured views and injury... but the team handed out large, Geico-sponsored Redskins signs and towels at the last home game, so obviously this is a lie.  Fans have reported that the team now bans the media from interviewing tailgaters, and security has forced people to turn t-shirts with negative messages inside-out.  Some fans even reported security calling the police on them, and threats that their season tickets would be revoked for daring to speak their minds about the team's malaise in print at the stadium they bought tickets to sit in.

The Redskins have even sued fans for breach of contract -- for breaking commitments to buy luxury club seats...then the team re-sells their tickets anyway.  On some occasions, they've sued a senior citizen and grandmother in her 80s, and a schizophrenic.  But don't take my word for it: read this.   And this.   As you'll see from the links in the first article, there's more where that came from.  Instead of taking the opportunity to do some introspection and make changes, the Redskins have instead decided to attack the media and fans who have the audacity to call them out on their incompetence and bullying.

I hold out hope that one day, Dan Snyder will have an epiphany and sell the team.  Or that he will hire real football people to run the organization and allow them to do so without interference.  I also hold out hope he will hire some folks on the marketing and operations side who treat fans like human beings instead of sentient wallets to be nickel-and-dimed at every turn.  Until then, I'm following this team from afar, through the outlets it has no control over, and the Redskins won't see even an indirect penny from me.  Dan and Vinny, I'd like to sarcastically thank you for making a mockery of my favorite sports team and tainting all my wonderful memories.      

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Alice In Chains: Black Gives Way To Blue

 

I never again thought there would be another Alice In Chains album to review -- not after lead singer and personal musical influence Layne Staley died of a cocaine/heroine overdose in 2002.  And I figured if they came back, the cheesiness and low-class-ness of attempting to replace one off the most unique and talented rock singers in a generation would make me want to light myself on fire. 

But something very strange happened to that formula before it played out: the band waited an adequate amount of time to regroup after the tragedy of losing Layne.  In the meantime, songwriter/guitarist/singer Jerry Cantrell toured on his own, dedicating his second solo album to Layne.  And then the album dropped this year...and didn't suck. 

Far from it.  Actually, Black Gives Way To Blue sounds just like Alice In Chains should sound.  Replacement singer William DuVall, who toured with Cantrell while the latter covered AIC tunes on his solo tour, sounds enough like Staley that you could squint your ears and not notice much of a difference.  DuVall doesn't quite have the same range, but he has the sound down pat.  In fact, it's likely you could mix songs from this album in a medley with songs from another AIC album and a casual listener would have trouble noticing the presence of different vocalists. 

The first two songs ("All Secrets Known" and the first single "Check My Brain") are classic Alice In Chains.  They sort of have to be: The band probably knew it had to satiate skeptical longtime fans, and to do so they needed to lead off strong.  As the album progresses, it dawns on the listener that it could easily have been released in the mid-90s; that's how close it hues to the band's sound from the Dirt era.  Though it doesn't quite achieve the excellence of Dirt, it probably even surpasses their prior self-titled original album release (colloquially referred to as "Tripod" owing to the picture of the 3-legged dog gracing the front cover).   

Both longtime fans and first-time listeners of Alice In Chains should be very impressed with Black Gives Way To Blue.  Somehow, the band has risen from the ashes to deliver one of its finest recordings...and that's why I am giving it 4 Golden Mics out of 5.   

Law-Abiding Citizen

 

Law Abiding Citizen is a pretty shitty movie.  Featuring two mailed-in performances from two very good actors, it's hard to believe that this is a movie that Gerard Butler chose to co-produce and hang his hat on.  Why? 

The plot and premise are equally absurd: a man (Gerard Butler) has his house broken into, gets stabbed and watches his wife and young daughter get brutally raped and killed in front of him.  An assistant D.A. (Jamie Foxx) decides to cut a deal with the main perpetrator that leaves him with a light 4-year sentence, while his accomplice ends up on death row.  Not satisfied, the surviving victim launches a war on the criminals and those in the justice system he feels wronged him through a series of brutal, graphic murders of his own.  Fun for the whole family!  Well, not really.

The saddest part is that the film at times seems to side with Butler's character.  It's sort of a blend between Seven, Law and Order and some crappy horror film.  Though it does manage to hold your attention, the film does so only by making the viewers curious to find out how this absurd premise and plot will be concluded.  You'll wait for them to botch a fascinating premise, then slowly lose your suspension of disbelief as they indeed manage to fuck it all up.  Two reels is all Law Abiding Citizen gets.

Now there are rumors that Mr. Terrific might be brought back.  Matt Sturges, the co-writer of Justice Society of America along with Bill Willingham, makes an appearance/comment on this message board (on Page 2, I think).  His comments imply that Mr. Terrific might not be as dead as he seemed to be at the end of the last issue of JSA.  He'd better not be. 

In Justice Society of America #31, released today, Michael Holt (aka Mr. Terrific) was confirmed dead on the last page. 

Why did Bill Willingham do this?  And why did DC Comics' editorial board decide it was ok? 

Mr. Terrific has played a major role in almost all of DC Comics' major crossover/epic events of the last 5-10 years.  He is the third-smartest character in DC Comics, behind only Batman (#2) and Lex Luthor (#1).  He was the chairperson and team leader of the Justice Society of America .  He was also one of my personal favorites, and one of the only prominent mainstream African-American super heroes. 

Bill Willingham took over writing JSA just two issues ago...and this is what he chooses to do right off the bat?  The worst part is that it was so undramatic.  There was no long, drawn-out scene, and he didn't really die in a heroic way.  If you're going to make a splash by killing off a major character, why not make  the death itself more dramatic/impactful?

I don't doubt this will have a major impact on storylines going forward, and the ramifications of this may be felt for years to come.  If that's not the case, I would be even more pissed.  Alternatively, Willingham could bring him back to life sometime down the road.  That kind of outcome usually pisses me off -- but not when the character shouldn't have been killed off in the first place. 

Mr. Terrific was one of the most admirable, non-stereotyped black characters in comics.  Thanks, DC, for making his death appear to be nothing more than shock value (at least on the surface).  If the subsequent stories do not justify this move, I'm going to drop the book.